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tyrant and slave, prude and coquette, alike lie forgotten underground. Man's first estate is dwelt on, and the effects of the coming of sin, then the work of Christ and the triumph of the human spirit over death and the grave. The poem ends with a diatribe on the folly of the fear of death.]

We wish to be where sweets unwithering bloom;
But straight our wish revoke and will not go.
So have I seen, upon a summer's even,
Fast by the riv'let's brink a youngster play.
How wishfully he looks to stem the tide!
This moment resolute, next unresolved.
At last he dips his foot; but as he dips,
His fears redouble, and he runs away
From th' inoffensive stream, unmindful now
Of all the flowers that paint the further bank
And smiled so sweet of late. Thrice welcome Death!
That after many a painful, bleeding step,

Conducts us to our home, and lands us safe

On the long-wished-for shore. Prodigious change!—
Our bane turned to a blessing! Death, disarmed,
Loses his fellness quite; all thanks to Him
Who scourged the venom out. Sure the last end
Of the good man is peace! How calm his exit !
Night-dews fall not more gently to the ground,
Nor weary, worn-out winds expire so soft.
Behold him in the evening-tide of life-
A life well spent, whose early care it was
His riper years should not upbraid his green-

By unperceived degrees he wears away,

Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting.
High in his faith and hopes, look how he reaches
After the prize in view, and like a bird

That's hampered, struggles hard to get away,
Whilst the glad gates of sight are wide expanded
To let new glories in, the first fair fruits
Of the fast-coming harvest. Then, oh! then
Each earth-born joy grows vile, or disappears,
Shrunk to a thing of nought. Oh how he longs
To have his passport signed, and be dismissed!
'Tis done, and now he's happy; the glad soul
Has not a wish uncrowned. E'en the lag flesh
Rests too in hope of meeting once again.
Its better half, never to sunder more.

Nor shall it hope in vain; the time draws on
When not a single spot of burial earth,
Whether on land or in the spacious sea,
But must give back its long committed dust
Inviolate; and faithfully shall these
Make up the full account, not the least atom
Embezzled or mislaid, of the whole tale.

Each soul shall have a body ready furnished ;
And each shall have his own. Hence, ye profane !
Ask not how this can be! Sure the same Power
That reared the piece at first, and took it down,
Can reassemble the loose scattered parts,
And put them as they were. Almighty God
Hath done much more; nor is his arm impaired
Through length of days; and what he can he will.
His faithfulness stands bound to see it done.
When the dread trumpet sounds, the slumb'ring dust
Not unattentive to the call, shall wake,
And every joint possess its proper place

With a new elegance of form unknown

To its first state.

Nor shall the conscious soul

Mistake its partner, but amidst the crowd

Singling its other half into its arms

Shall rush, with all th' impatience of a man
That's new come home, and, having long been

absent,

With haste runs over every different room,

In pain to see the whole. Thrice happy meeting! Nor time nor death shall ever part them more.

'Tis but a night, a long and moonless night; We make the grave our bed, and then are gone. Thus, at the shut of even, the weary bird Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake Cowers down and doses till the dawn of day, Then claps his well-fledged wings, and bears away.

THE AUTHOR OF ALBANIA.

Fl. 1737.

All that is known of the author of Albania: a Poem addressed to the Genius of Scotland, is told by Dr. John Leyden in his little volume of Scottish Descriptive Poems (Edin. 1803). The author and the original editor, he says, are equally unknown, and of the original edition of the poem, printed at London for T. Cooper, in 1737, only one copy is known to exist. From the advertisement to that single copy Leyden quotes the sentence, "The poem was wrote by a Scots clergyman, some years ago, who is since dead," and from an allusion in the poem itself the author appears to have been twenty-four years of age at the time of composition. Leyden further quotes a verse of Aaron Hill declaring the author and also the earlier editor of the poem to have been Scotsmen, and he states that the preservation of the piece is due to the taste of "the ingenious author of The Minstrel." This last fact, and a reference to "Devana" in the body of the piece, point to the conclusion that the poet was a native, or at least a resident, of Aberdeen. Nothing further has been discovered of the author of Albania, and he seems to have left no other work to the world. Within the short length of its 296 lines, however, the poem contains passages which are hardly surpassed by anything written in its time. It is put together without artistic method, and some of its parts treat of matters hardly suited for poetry; but throughout it has a fresh strength and a breath of soil and sea that are of a kind by themselves, and must rank the unknown author among the original geniuses of his age. The passage descriptive of the superstition of invisible hunting has been quoted by Beattie in his Essays on Poetry and Music, and by Scott in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

ALBANIA.

O LOVED Albania! hardy nurse of men!
Holding thy silver cross, I worship thee,
On this thy old and solemn festival,
Early, ere yet the wakeful cock has crowed.

Hear! goddess, hear! that on the beryl flood, Enthroned of old, amid the waters sound,

Reign'st far and wide o'er many a sea-girt spot.
Oh smile! whether on high Dunedin thou
Guardest the steep and iron-bolted rock

Where trusted lie the monarchy's last gems,

The sceptre, sword, and crown, that graced the brows,

Since father Fergus, of an hundred kings:

Or if, along the well-contested ground,

The warlike Border-land, thou marchest proud,
In Teviotdale, where many a shepherd dwells,
By lovely winding Tweed, or Cheviot brown.
Nor ween I now in Durham's lofty spire

To seek thee, though thy loved St. David's work;
Nor where Newcastle opes her jetty mines
Of coal; nor in strong Berwick; nor in Man,
That never dreaded plague; nor in the wilds
Of stony Westmorland: all once thy own.

Hail, land of bowmen! seed of those who scorned
To stoop the neck to wide imperial Rome.
O dearest half of Albion, sea-walled!
Hail! state unconquered by the fire of war,
Red war, that twenty ages round thee burned !
To thee, for whom my purest raptures glow,
Kneeling with filial homage, I devote
My life, my strength, my first and latest song.
Shall I forget thy tenderness? shall I

Thy bounty, thy parental cares forget,

Hissing with viper's tongue ?-who born of thee, Now twice twelve years have drawn thy vital air,

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